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Merchome

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Ultimate Argument Risk Control welcomes you to Vordon (Lis Corridor), also known as Merchome, and hopes your stay will be an enjoyable and profitable one!

Whether you are, are looking to hire, or are looking to be hired by a mercenary company, our many talented brokers can find the contract that is right for you. Our partnerships with weapons brokers and vehicle manufacturers from Artifice Armaments, ICC, through Hectatonlon, JSC, guarantee your ability to resupply and upgrade your materiel, and facilities for training and exercises are available to you at reasonable —

Blah, blah, blah, and I ripped out the next three pages of sales pitch.

For your safety, Ultimate Argument Risk Control recommends that you remain within the bounds of the city of Plenary, capital of Vordon, where Imperial law is in effect and security is guaranteed by the personal pledge of the Executive Director for Private Planetary Affairs.

Affectionately known as “Mister Signature” to us, and even his salarymen have been heard to use the name.

Beyond the dome of Plenary, by special permission, only the Contract and the Market Peace are in effect.

Enforcement of these outside Plenary, except for UARC’s own facilities, is contracted out to copmerc companies currently in garrison and in need of cash flow. As such, it tends to be a little rough and ready – and is always subordinate to UARC corporate security.

Of course, if you wanted safety, why in the name of Orchaya’s carbon-scored tits did you come to Merchome!?

The Planet Itself

Vordon is a postsylithic world in the final stages of planetary senescence.

In other words: “it’s a bunk planet, so we got it cheap”.

From space, the planet resembles a yellow-swirled marble, an impression only redoubled upon reaching the surface: vast deserts of yellow-orange sand stretch between the remains of mountain ranges worn down to bare hillocks, and the dusty basins of long-vanished oceans. The sky, too, is yellow with dust born aloft by sluggish wind, which serves the valuable function of helping to block out some of the radiation allowed to reach the surface by the weak magnetic field generated by Vordon’s long-cooled core.

So just being outside is one way to tell who’s been properly maintaining the seals on their field equipment.

A thin oxygen atmosphere is maintained by remnant life deep beneath the former ocean basins, supplemented in most buildings by positive pressurization; those unused to the conditions routinely suffer from altitude sickness for their first weeks on-planet. While the winds of Vordon are typically mild, periods of flare activity on the system primary have been known to stir up violent cyclonic storms capable of sandblasting exposed equipment and flesh alike.

As is the case for many postsylithic worlds, Vordon was previously inhabited by a civilization now long since extinct. Extensive studies carried out before UARC obtained title to the planet have found only fragmentary remains too eroded to be of archaeological interest. UARC assures all visitors that there is no treasure to be found anywhere on Vordon’s surface, and advises that rescue and paramedical services are not available in Vordon’s wilderness except by private contract.

Hiring yourself out to treasure hunters may seem like easy work, but they tend to run out of money before they pay you, then whine when you leave them behind. Not recommended.

Vordon has three small moons, all asteroid captures. One, Vorwatch, is reserved by UARC for servicing corporate starships; the others, Vorguard and Vorsentry, are leased in sections to mercenary companies in need of starship berthing of their own.

Notable Regions: Plenary

The capital of Vordon is the city of Plenary, located at the edge of a mountain range running down one of Vordon’s continental mesas. Ultimate Argument Risk Control domed over an impact crater to create the city, adding an open starport to its north fully capable of handling heavy-lift vehicles and dropships.

Beneath its dome, Plenary is the shining jewel in UARC’s crown, a lush garden in Vordon’s desert wilderness. To representatives of our corporate and sovereign clients, we recommend the elegant waterfront hotels along the Sanguine Canal, which are fully equipped to handle guests of any known race. Our corporate concierge offers a booking service which guarantees that representatives will not be housed in uncomfortable proximity to their declared enemies, and our security services offer full protection against assassination during your stay, along with complimentary reinstantiation in the rare event that this protection fails. For less pecunious visitors, a variety of comfortable exodochia can be found on the first and second sublevels.

“Less pecunious”. Hah.

They’re very proud of their company town. To those of us less enamored with the starcorporate way of thinking, this shining jewel is better known as “suit central”, “client plush”, and “how am I still awake?”

The center of the city is the Spire of Glorious and Profitable Battle, known as “the Battlespire” for short. This 460-floor edifice, penetrating the dome at its highest point, presides over the lesser offices and commercial buildings at its knees with power and undeniable style.

There’s a reason a nameless but literate comrade nicknamed it the Baculum many years back, and even now, it’s generally known outside the corporation as “the Baccy”. Mostly affectionately – they may have one, but they usually aren’t one.

While UARC’s corporate headquarters remains in Titan Station (Lumenna-Súnáris System), the upper floors of the Battlespire serve as the headquarters for our mercenary brokerage division, with the Executive Director in permanent residence and other members of the Directorate visiting frequently. Lower floors, open to the public, house offices for our escrow, bonding, arbitration, sales, referral, information brokerage, and other services.

The remainder of the city, other than its residential districts, is home to offices for many of UARC’s partners and other corporations doing business on Vordon, including many of its most profitable and reputable mercenary companies. Its commercial areas offer for sale virtually any weapons system, military vehicle, or other materiel legal for use somewhere in the Worlds, many of them customized on-planet in the factory sublevels.

Since it’s also visited by many of us honest mercenaries who may be hard to distinguish at first sight from the less honest kind, it also holds the galactic record for autocannons per square meter.

You also can’t get the ammunition for anything larger than a personal weapon in those commercial areas. You can have it delivered to you in Plenary Camp, or to a transport in orbit, but not in the city itself.

Notable Regions: Plenary Camp

Surrounding the dome of Plenary itself for miles is Plenary Camp, a broad ring of barracks, laagers, airstrips, training grounds, and other military appurtenances; the home when in garrison of Vordon’s residential mercenaries, and including the offices of those companies which have chosen not to secure space within Plenary itself.

Or have other reasons not to pay for space at 250 exval per soph-square-month. Can’t imagine what those would be.

In Plenary Camp, while most management is left up to the individual base owners, the Contract and Market Peace are enforced by mercenaries contracted by UARC’s Planetary Security subdivision.

Aside from shared infrastructure, there is little else to be found in Plenary Camp. Over the years, most entertainment has moved to the nearby city of Ossiltun’s Victory (see below).

Because there’s only so much of a good time you can have under the eyes of your competitors’ armbands.

The entertainment they’re not telling you about is what used to be the Branta’s Bashers parade ground before they got shot up on Turech, now known to one and all as Sorehead Square, or by other names more profane. This is the chunk of land where the current copmercs like to herd all the green-cored mushheads who have issues with us honest fighting-sophs and our business existing at all, and have come all the way to Vordon to tell us about it. Bad publicity likely to ensue if you let them mix with the bored, offended, or easily amused grunts, after all.

It’s also why UARC changes out the copmercs every few months. They do love to fight among themselves over the right way to be pacifist, and it doesn’t take long for the armbands to stop refereeing the fights and start placing bets on them.

The UARC Sophont Relations department strictly forbids all mercenaries on the planet from hiring themselves out to any side in these internecine disputes, no matter how ironic it might be. Spoilsports.

Notable Regions: The Ranges

UARC has designated dozens of large areas of varied terrain on the continent north of Plenary as weapons-testing ranges and sites available for live-fire exercises. If you or your company wishes to make use of these facilities, please contact the scheduling office in the Battlespire for more information and to make a booking.

UARC strongly recommends that, despite the large uninhabited regions of Vordon, you do not plan weapons testing or live-fire exercises in locations other than the designated ranges. Liability for any harm done off a designated range rests with you, and Planetary Security, their contractees, and others, are free to respond to perceived threats with overwhelming force.

Some cash-strapped mercs and Rooktown denizens consider these a good place to scavenge. Since they’re almost continuously in use and rescue services are only available in between exercises, this is only a good idea if you’ve always wanted a career as a pop-up target. Spying on the competition pays better, but isn’t much more survivable.

Notable Regions: Ossiltun’s Victory

A thousand miles east of Plenary Camp, connected via maglev tube, is the city of Ossiltun’s Victory. Unlike Plenary, it was never intended as a city; rather, it traces its origin to the Five-Minute War of 6371. Following the loss by government forces to the rebellion in the nearby Mmpha Gerontocracy (now the Mmpha Mandate), the remnant forces of the Gerontocracy under Half-Admiral Ossiltun attempted a vengeance attack against what they perceived as the home planet of the mercenary forces which enabled the rebel victory.

And brilliant ideas like this, kids, are why you should always fight for money.

Having failed to properly assess the hazards of attacking what was, even then, one of the Worlds’ greatest concentrations of military force, Ossiltun’s fleet was destroyed extremely rapidly by the assembled spacegoing forces gathered on Vorguard and accompanying fire from the surface.

The Admiral’s flagship, the dreadnought GNS Scourge of Isskill, was fortunate enough to escape immediate destruction, but interruption of a maneuvering burn left it in a decaying orbit which terminated six hours later in a debris trail crossing several hundred miles of ground, ending at the largest intact fragment of the hulk. This collection of debris was unceremoniously looted by the defending coalition.

Shortly thereafter, an enterprising group of camp followers acquired rights to the hulk fragment, and making use of its salvage and remaining power machinery, the modern city of Ossiltun’s Victory was born.

Consisting of various suburbs around the reshaped hulk, largely constructed from prefabs and repurposed shipping containers, Ossiltun’s Victory includes Vordon’s secondary starport, the headquarters of several mercenary companies which prefer to maintain a greater degree of visible independence from UARC (primary among these is Kestal’s Raiders, whose HQ shares the hulk itself with the town’s civil administration and largest tavern, the Bloated Floater), and a wide variety of recreational services.

What they mean is “best booze, whores, and gambling on the planet”. Best drinks are at Dallie Lim’s – the drinks aren’t watered, the games are half-honest, and he only screws you where you can see. Tell him I sent you.

[A second hand, below, disagrees profanely and content-freely with the latter assessment.]

Notable Regions: Rooktown

Located thirty miles north of Ossiltun’s Victory, “Rooktown” is a temporary squatter encampment. UARC apologizes for its presence, and recommends that it be avoided by all visitors to Vordon. Steps are being undertaken to deal with the problem.

Translating that from the corpocratese: Rooktown is where the wannamercs rejected by all the recruiters on the planet end up, and yes, that does mean it’s full of psych cases who’re the wrong kind of crazy for this job. The “steps being undertaken” are that every time the noise gets too loud, Mister Signature issues a contract to deport anyone who doesn’t resist and shoot anyone who does, but there are enough wannamercs in the galaxy that Rooktown always comes back.

It’s a bad place to recruit cheap muscle, but if you need to pick up some quick ablative meat, it’ll do you. Odds are good you’ll never have to pay it, and you might even make a profit off a collector of the last 200 years of “Guns and Bullets” magazine.

Notable Regions: Htumleh Wastes

South of the inhabited regions of Vordon are the Htumleh Wastes, a large depression that was formerly a large lake or minor ocean. This region should be avoided by all visitors to the planet.

In part, this is because of the importance of the remnant ecology of such basins to Vordon’s continued viability. (Mote-lichen within the depths of these basins are the primary remaining oxygen producers.) However, of greater importance are the Vordon deathmites, tiny insects which consume the mote-lichen. The deathmites are adapted to survive by scavenging any fluids and recyclable organics they can locate, and they are exceedingly effective at doing so. An organic sophont attempting to traverse the Htumleh Wastes represents unimaginable bounty to them. Need we say more?

In other words, don’t bother buying insect repellent for your ground-car. The burrowing ones will eat that, too, if there are any sucrochemical or petrochemical-based plastics in it. And then explode from over-satiation. You don’t want them to explode.

Many visitors to the planet are tempted into the Wastes by what appear to be the ruins of a city on an island near the northern edge of the basin; starport slash-traders have been known to sell treasure maps leading there. Don’t be fooled: what you are looking at are multi-million-year-old crumbling foundations which have already been picked over by several expeditions, none of which found anything of value or interest.

And don’t hire yourself out to anyone chasing this sucker-bait, either.

Notable Regions: The Wrecks

Between Plenary and the Ranges are “The Wrecks”, the Vordon planetary wreckyard. Mercenary companies basing out of Vordon or contracted to UARC are permitted to dump destroyed equipment and surplus materiel here for a nominal fee and signing over all salvage rights. UARC in turn has an arrangement with several hazardous waste management consortia to properly dispose of all such military waste.

Visitors are advised to remain clear of the area, which may contain undetonated ordnance and other hazards.

You can sometimes pick up functional equipment and interesting secrets among the piles of discarded surplus and unsorted miltrash. Don’t be surprised to run across a few bodies, either; not everyone pays death benefits or lived long enough to cut their comrades out of the wreck – or else wanted to live too much to sort them out from the live rounds slopping around in it.

Stay out of the far end where they pile the starship wrecks and heavy vehicles, though. If the echoing sound of gunfire and canned orders over loudspeaker didn’t make it plain, some companies like to use it for live-fire training, and you’re not on theirside.

Notable Regions: Grudgering

Vordon’s remaining settlement is the adjudication and war-tourism center of Grudgering. Based around a number of arenas carved out of craters, Grudgering originated as an informal location to settle intercompany disputes by combat adjudication, ranging from individual duels to full battlefield-conditions combat.

Today, Grudgering has expanded from this beginning into, on the one hand, a center dedicated to combat adjudication – not necessarily between companies themselves, but now permitting disputants to hire mercenary companies to fight out a binding decision on their behalf – and on the other hand, a generator of much of Vordon’s tourism income, as visitors come to observe the excitement of live-fire combat under controlled conditions. Indeed, some companies have come to specialize in delivering battles to please these visitors’ expectations.

Yeah, and are now worse than useless in anything resembling a real firefight.

Order (and profitability) in Grudgering is maintained by the Watchful Face company, under Eirsun “the Eyeball” Simeticelneratarathansi. Much of that profitability comes from the Face’s detailed recordings of all battles taking place in Grudgering, which they sell to companies for use in their own advertising, to the intelligence and research departments of their opponents, and to extranet media groups, without distinction. As “the Eyeball” herself puts it, “Even if you’re stupid enough to fight without gettin’ paid, someone ought to be getting paid. Preferably several times.”

A good way of getting paid for fighting, incidentally, is joining one of the guard squads that keep the Eyeball safe off-world from all the mercs who didn’t want to go prime-time or found the competition a bit too knowledgeable about their tactics. Not only does it pay well in money, but it pays well in staying under the radar where what you did in Grudgering is concerned.

– partially-eaten fragment of an annotated copy of Vordon: Planet of Adventure, found in the Htumleh Wastes